Uttering Strictly Prohibited
by Scraggles
Summary: Lightning, Serah, and Snow have been living in their new home on Pulse for two months, and at this point in time, they discover that there are just some things that should be left unsaid.


**Ello all. Again, another writers block induced mess for you to sift your way through. I'd like to apologize for not updating some of my other stories yet and not getting around to mail. Really, it is hectic these days. Anyway, I hope you enjoy. I didn't put all that much effort into this one.**

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They say that crystals inherently share a connection. What kind of connection, no one is sure; it's supposedly a myth. Serah knows this, as she goes through her daily life, but it doesn't explain the random moments that she just feels _off.. _like right now, for instance, as she's watching Snow being lectured by Lightning for his absolutely terrible table manners – well, not really watching, but still. It makes her think she's going crazy; it's like there are two more people in the room – everywhere she goes!

"Just because we're eating finger food doesn't give you grounds to use the fork to pick your nose, Snow," Lightning is saying, pointing accusingly at him. Snow is retreating farther and farther back into his seat as she goes, and Serah is in the process of staring meaningfully into her plate, as if trying to decipher the crusty messages inscribed on the skin of her burnt chicken will do her any good. She knew she should've cooked tonight. All in all, it makes for an interesting scene for anyone watching, she thinks to herself, trying to block out as much of the conversation as is humanly possible, when she hears a voice.

"_The fork wasn't being used for anything, now was it, Light?"_ a strangely familiar accent purrs silkily before sighing, _"Geez, you'd think you'd lighten up after a couple months of this." _It pauses for a moment, laughing, then states the obvious, _"Haha, I made a funny."_

Serah doesn't get the joke until another voice responds giddily, _"Yeah. I know right?"_

Serah twitches. _Is that Snow and Lightning? _Common sense tells her otherwise. At least, unless NORA decided to pump the house full of helium and spike their drinks.. again. Serah remembers that day with a cringe. Thinking of that, she excuses herself from the table, padding in her little white stockings back to Lightning's room. That was what the source of the disaster was the week before: the air-conditioner.

She pads up to the contraption cautiously. Heaven forbid that she breathes in any helium. She knew how that went last time. It had been Maqui and Gadot's idea to pull the prank in the first place; they thought it'd be hilarious if Lightning had a high pitched voice. Little did they know that the entire house would be victims of their plot. For almost the entire week since their moving in by the newly acclaimed Crystal Heights, they'd been chipmunks. To her horror, however, as she takes a whiff of the vent and tests it out, her voice is exactly the same. She tries again, taking another drag of the cold air blowing at her face and humming, with the same results.

"There has to something with this thing," she says to herself, squatting in front of the machine and staring hard as her hair flies back. After a second of thought, she reaches for the corners of the box and begins prying at it, not paying attention to the loud sound of popping plastic she's making. It takes a moment, but she manages to get one corner to come free, soon the other, and the white frame begins to peel away from the front of the air-conditioner. She doesn't notice footsteps approaching until it's too late.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Serah stiffens at her sister's tone. She's only able to stutter and 'uh' before her sister takes her up by the arm, glaring hard.

Lightning sighs, loosening her grip. "You of all people.." She shakes her head.

At that very moment, Snow barges in after her, sidestepping through the doorway as soon as he sees what's going on. "What's wrong?" he asks frantically, "Is the air-conditioner broken again?" His eyes get wider when he looks down and chances his gaze on the plastic cover lying on the floor. He looks back up to Lightning, expecting the worst. Serah is hopelessly confused.

"No," Lightning replies in a grave voice, "Worse than that," she casts a sympathetic gaze down towards her sister, and her grip tightens again. She looks as if she could cry for a second, but then she looks back up, "Snow, Serah's practicing for choir." She cuts off abruptly, despaired.

"Egads!" Snow gasps, jumping back for a moment and nearly tripping over a trash can. He stumbles back to the wall and catches his breath. "Wait, what?" He glances back to Serah, who is still dangling by the arm, looking just as lost as he was.

"Choir, Snow. Choir," Lightning repeats, as if it will clear anything up. "You know, Barthandelus? Creepy old pervert who transformed into your girlfriend and hugged you for no apparent reason?" She cringes at the details momentarily. She honestly can't believe just how utterly horrible Serah's taste in men had to be for her to pick this idiot. "That guy? Remember?"

Snow's face is blank.

"Oh please, don't tell me you're deaf _and_ dumb," at this, she once again sends her sympathies down to her sister, "Remember, big head, small body?" She cringes again.. _Snow in reverse.._ She needs more examples. "Pretended to be the Primarch? Lots of creepy singing heads?" She feels like slapping him.

"Oh! I remember now!" Snow says after a few seconds, jumping up again. Then he looks confused again.

Lightning sighs._ Glad to know that the hamster up in that noggin of yours hasn't **quite** managed to get itself stuck in the wheel just yet, _She thinks, counting her blessings, _How it's managed not to is what I'm wondering._

The blonde furrows his brow. "What does Serah joining choir have to do with anything?"

And now she's counting his, one of which, being that she hasn't just bonked him over the head. She growls, letting go of her sister. "Were you even listening to me?" she asks, furious. "Choir means singing, and singing means Barthandelus! Don't you get it?"

Snow is clueless and merely scratches his head, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

How like an imbecile, Lightning notes. She slaps her forehead, sliding her hand down to pinch the bridge of her nose briefly. She mutters, "Idiot," and looks to her sister, pleading, "Serah, please don't tell me you're planning on procreating with this moron."

Serah merely shrugs.

And that's that. Snow walks out of the room, leaving the two sisters alone. They have some things to figure out, he thinks audibly – loudly, as he lumbers down the hall and back into the kitchen. The sound of a fridge door nearly being torn off its hinges can be heard not five seconds after he leaves, and the girls know that one or both of them will have to make the dreaded trip to the grocery store, one way or another, before the black hole of Snow's stomach manages to devour anything other than their relatively untouched charcoal chicken leg dinners.

Serah gulps, feeling the urge to say something decidedly unpleasant, courtesy of the same posh-accented pests. Instead, she opts to ask something less irritating, and yet it comes out the same. "Lightning, what's procreating?" Immediately, both of them want to slap themselves.. again.

"What you don't know won't hurt you, Serah," Lightning responds, a horrified look plastered onto her usual expression.

Still, Serah presses on, putting on the most innocent face she can manage. She tugs her sister's sleeve, suddenly looking worried. "I-it's not like that birds and the bees talk is it?" she asks, and Lightning turns two shades paler, hoping she won't finish that inquiry. Her hopes are ignored. "You know, the one where we ha-"

"Stop!" Lightning yelps, flushed, "We don't speak about that in this house! That was your fault for acting all cute and cuddly like that!"

Serah quirks an eyebrow, watching her sister go through rapid color swatches. "Outside the house?"

"Not there either!" is Lightning's response. It comes quickly, too, and so does Lightning's constant raving afterwards.

"Under the kitchen table?" her sister asks, at a loss. This one is a last ditch effort. Judging by the look on her sister's face, it's working – for the moment. Though, that could just be the minute amounts of freon in her eyes.

"No!" Lightning says, "Just because I agreed to make a fort with you does not make the kitchen table a viable structure in any way, shape, form, or fashion!" She seems to be growing more and more exasperated as she says this, huffing. "And it doesn't mean I'll be going back under there either! Not after what you did!" she adds, for safety's sake. Serah seems just a tad bit too excited for her to leave that out.

"_Embarrassed much?"_ The same voice that's been plaguing Serah's mind for the longest time asks, as if it's a rhetorical question.

"_Shhh! I'm trying to watch my favorite romance comedy, Fang!" _Another, much higher, voice says. It sounds undoubtedly familiar, and yet she can't quite remember where she's heard it.

The other one apologizes and a crunch, not unlike that of popcorn being chewed, is heard. _"Oh, sorry."_

Serah looks up to Lightning, slightly confused. "So you're saying that you'd be willing to discuss this somewhere other than the house?" she asks, quite happy with her use of vocabulary. Her rosy cheeks perk up, hopeful that she's got this one right.

But alas, it isn't to be. "What?" Lightning is flabbergasted, "No! We don't speak of this – ever – until a certain someone with a few extra twenty-one's around here is long dead!" She waves her hands around uncharacteristically for emphasis, "Long dead! Do you hear me?"

Serah watches her sister's breathing return to a relatively normal state, touching a finger to her lip in thought. "So that means we can talk about it later?" She smiles sheepishly, waiting for her sister to blow up into a thousand pieces. Her face is tomato red, soon to be maroon.

Lightning throws her hands in the air with a sigh, deciding to walk it off, leaving Serah alone in the room. The girl shrugs. It wouldn't be a bad time to sniff the vents a little more, she figures. Maybe Light could try it once in a while. She giggles at the thought.

"Oh, Lightning," she sighs, smiling in the middle of the floor, "Whatever you say."

"_Oh Lightning, indeed.. I bet you've been saying Serah's name for a looong time now, huh?"_

"_Fang! Shh! . . We don't speak like that!"

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**Fin, I believe. ;b**_  
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